Not in the Fine Print
by looper3148
Summary: She can't help but think, as he turns away to continue his discussion with Poseidon and Hermes, how cruel her immortal life is, and how she doesn't remember reading that in the fine print. AU Post TLO-Spoiler Alert!


**Welcome to my first PJO fic! Readers beware, there are TLO spoilers, so read at your own risk!**

**I've always loved this series and anything involving an angsty plot so I decided to mash the two together. I also always thought the possibility that Percy choosing immortality at the end of TLO was very likely. I have also read a lot of stories that talk about Percy and Annabeth meeting again after his decision, but I always imagined Annabeth to be too hurt and too prideful to actually see him again. **

**Please enjoy, and being my first fic, reviews would be much appreciated!**

Being both the daughter of the wisdom goddess and an immortal huntress, she can't help but use her infinite hours in the world for puzzling many of the world's complexities. Ever since the end of the titan war monsters have generally been low in numbers, leaving Annabeth and the rest of the hunters with very little to do except wait. Given, having Thalia as a companion was always comforting, and adventuring with the other girls has started to grow on her, but being herself she can't help receding within her thoughts sometimes.

Or maybe most of the time.

That's why Annabeth craves any sort of mission Artemis sends for them; any sort of chance to use her brain for something other than wonder about her past and the infinite what if's that have caused her to break a little every time they cross her mind. Riding up the elevator to Olympus now to report their mission's success to her Ladyship, Annabeth is a little rueful, but as she steps out of bronze doors with Thalia and the others, she thinks at least there will be something new to think about.

What Annabeth doesn't expect however, is to find something other than their recent mission to think about in circles after spotting a heartbreakingly familiar stranger at the other end of the throne room.

They haven't seen each other since _that _day, so many years ago, and yet his lop-sided grin makes her feel like they're both still naïve and sixteen, with the possibility of a fantastic future ahead of them. His chaotic and mysterious green eyes still manage to calm her in ways nothing else could. She never realized how ironic that was until now.

But the strange glow emanating from his body, the stronger chin and broader chest hurdle Annabeth back to the present and back to a reality where things aren't as perfect and as simple as a lopsided grin. There's something wrong with this image of him, and Annabeth isn't quite sure how she feels about that.

Wait scratch that, she knows how she feels—utterly and terribly confused. It's a strange feeling knowing that you are supposed to know a stranger in ways so much stronger than as friends. It's unnerving to see him dressed in a gleaming white toga secured by the emblem of his father, when he so obviously should be seen in a faded orange t-shirt and worn reeboks. The sheer wrongness of the scene makes her stomach lurch.

But seeing how his lopsided grin melted away into a distant stare so effortlessly was perhaps the most crippling, because the truth was she meant nothing to him. She wasn't worth more than immortality all those years ago, so why should she think she was today? She was just Annabeth now, no more than a handmaid of Artemis. Annabeth Chase, hero of Olympus died when he said yes and there's no coming back from that kind of choice.

She can't help but think, as he turns away to continue his discussion with Poseidon and Hermes, how cruel her immortal life is, and how she doesn't remember reading that in the fine print. She doesn't remember reading how the days would drag on and blend together, or how the pain would never really go away. Most certainly, she doesn't remember reading how ironic it was going to be; how her decision to live forever so that he wouldn't leave her behind was silly and girlish and most of all foolish—because being together was the one thing that could never happen.

So instead she continues on in a constant existence that's more like death, and more than _anything_ she wishes she was a smarter person all those years ago. But she was blinded by the hope and the need to grasp at the broken pieces of _them;_ because really what was their existence without the other? She realizes now how desperately she clung to a chance that everything might be alright again—her hubris coming into play right on cue. Of course she could fix his mistakes, she was Annabeth—isn't that what she always did?

But hubris, being her fatal flaw managed to kill her in the end (another irony of immortal life considering she can't die, and yet is dead). Without him the Annabeth she wants to be doesn't exist anymore and if she tries to bring that old, better version back she'll be damned to the depths of hell without him.

In the few seconds it takes to pass him, all of this is running through her thoughts and she hates him for making her like this—hates him with every fiber of her being. There's so much hatred that she isn't sure if she's screaming on the inside from hatred or sheer longing to be wanted again. Ironically, again, no one can hear her dying soul and only their hurried footsteps can mask the suffocating silence.

And the pain is too much, and she was never good with goodbyes anyway, so why bother to say hello? So that's why she passes by without another glance, without another thought. That's why she chooses to ignore Thalia's burning eyes and pointed shoulder nudging. That's why she ignores her other comrades confused mutterings and stares that flit back and forth between the god and herself (because that what he is now, remember?)

And most definitely, that's why she chooses to ignore his brief glance that most certainly isn't filled with loneliness and regret, because he's a god and she's a huntress and he left her. And as painful as it is, it's time she left him too.

As she strides out of the throne room, even in front of Thalia, she ignores that breaking part of her soul, the last part of Annabeth Chase that continued to exist. She shoves it down into the back corners of her mind and her heart and her soul, where all of her other real parts are stored and puts on a cold, prideful facade.

She needs to forget everything that made the world more colorful, because somehow she knows she'll never see those same colors again.

So as she leaves him without a backwards glance she tells herself that his eyes couldn't possibly be holding the same longing that her stinging eyes have too, because it's become much easier to just ignore the fine print.


End file.
